


A Perfect Storm

by edgeworlding



Category: The Edge Chronicles - Paul Stewart & Chris Riddell
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-17 05:46:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16089296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edgeworlding/pseuds/edgeworlding
Summary: Although he had barely been in the bath for a quarter of an hour, he felt increasingly lightheaded and over-warm, a hot flush climbing his collarbone. His body felt loose, liquidy, as if he had been drinking...and then his mind wandered where he seldom let it, and began to dwell, as if he hadreallybeen drinking. Cowlquape shifted in discomfort. The strange, swirling energy in him seemed to hasten, then snapped taut—and Cowlquape suddenly felt restless, invigorated—the boundaries he so strictly drew around his waking thoughts nowhere to be seen, and the world of his dreams spilled over, as if a vault had been sprung, and the unthinkable flooded in…





	A Perfect Storm

Peals of thunder rumbled in the distance, low and soothing. Cowlquape breathed in the rising steam with an easy sigh, sinking back into the water. His mind wandered, and he struggled to focus on the treatise he held carefully suspended over the water. Concerned he might let it slip, Cowlquape set it aside and reclined, listening to the gentle patter of rain in the study beyond.

Although he had barely been in the bath for a quarter of an hour, he felt increasingly lightheaded and over-warm, a hot flush climbing his collarbone. His body felt loose, liquidy, as if he had been drinking...and then his mind wandered where he seldom let it, and began to dwell, as if he had _really_ been drinking. Cowlquape shifted in discomfort. The strange, swirling energy in him seemed to hasten, then snapped taut—and Cowlquape suddenly felt restless, invigorated—the boundaries he so strictly drew around his waking thoughts nowhere to be seen, and the world of his dreams spilled over, as if a vault had been sprung, and the unthinkable flooded in…

At the window of the study, Twig was watching the dark storm clouds begin to gather in the sky beyond, blotting out the little remaining daylight and throwing the study into the flickering lavender glow of the lufwood stove. Twig laid a hand to the cold glass of the window with a deep sigh. Somewhere far beyond the clouds, sky ships were sailing, free as birds, off to explore every corner of the Edge…

He pressed a palm to his forehead, oddly damp despite the chill leeching in from outside, and returned to his desk. It was piled with stacks of meaningless tedium, all busy-work the Professor of Darkness ha passed along to keep him occupied. Nearly the entirety of it was for show. As the Sub-Professor of Light, Twig was technically supposed to be working on _something,_ although the content and quality of that something was anyone’s guess. He snorted in frustration and turned to the window again, just as the rain began to spatter the glass in earnest. He wiped the sweat from his brow, feeling unusually hot. With the first falling drops had come a tingling under his skin, familiar and uncomfortable. Twig pulled at the collar of his robes, which suddenly felt heavy and sweltering… 

‘P-Pro-fes-sor,’ stuttered a voice behind him.

Twig sighed, turning to face his apprentice. ‘Cowlquape, how many times must I tell you to call me Tw—’ he broke off into stunned silence.

Cowlquape stood silhouetted in the washroom archway, water still dripping from the tips of his sandy hair. He had tossed a crimson robe hastily about him, the belt loosely fastened, the strip of pale flesh bared beneath its gaping breast all the way to the navel shockingly immodest for his usual diffidence. His cheeks were flushed, the gaze above them piercing. His breath came in quick, shallow gasps.

Twig’s eyes widened and he froze, pressing back a swell of emotion that struck him like a fist.

‘Cowlquape?’ he said slowly, as if ensure that it was the only thing that left his head. 

‘I w-want you, P-Professor,’ he panted. ‘I w-want you T-T-Twig…w-with all of my b-being…’

Twig’s jaw dropped. ‘What?’ he managed dumbly.

‘I w-want…you…now…’ Cowlquape took an unsteady step forward.

Twig’s heart was suddenly thundering, the rush of it in his ears overtaking the beat of rain against glass. A hundred rationalizations he had neatly assembled to keep Cowlquape at arms length—dusted off again and again in quiet moments of intimacy, when he had yearned to reach out a hand to the soft side of his cheek, to kiss his knuckles, to tell him the truth...they fell into disarray, chaotic and meaningless.

‘Cowlquape,’ he started, careful not to let his voice break, ‘you’re my friend, and you don’t know…what…’ the words faltered and died as Cowlquape took another step, then another, until he drew close—close enough that a simple indrawn breath could have brought them together. The robe whispered open, pulling away at one hip where he pressed towards Twig’s body.

Twig’s voice failed him entirely. Desire coiled hot in his stomach. He raised his hand to the nape of Cowlquape’s neck, the hair there soft and slick with water, the skin beneath feverish. He swallowed. ‘It’s a risk…’ he murmured, the words hoarse.

Cowlquape’s eyes flashed. He fisted both hands in the neck of Twig’s overcoat and drew himself up, nose-to-nose, as if in challenge. Twig could feel the brush of his lips as he demanded: ‘Take it!’

In a split second Twig was kissing him, closing the sliver of space between them, while Cowlquape’s grasping hands locked tight across his shoulders. It was rough and urgent, the two of them colliding with the unpolished frenzy of new lovers, but it was perfect all the same. Twig’s lips parted and he caught Cowlquape’s tongue, his free hand slipping beneath the breast of the robe to grip the soft small of his back. Cowlquape’s leg threaded between his, his hands flying from the roots of his hair to the back of his neck to the firm line of his hip as he tried touch all of him at once.

Twig barely broke away for a moment of air before he pressed his nose against the smooth flesh behind Cowlquape’s ear, hungrily tracing the curve of his jaw, his tongue like a line of fire. 

Gooseflesh rose on Cowlquape’s arms, desire scorching through him, and he felt weak and giddy with it. His hands grappled at the throat of Twig’s robes, fumbling at the button. He shoved the coat back, and Twig staggered, then rolled back his shoulders himself to shuck the coat away.

He grabbed Cowlquape’s hips and met his eye. They hung in the moment, watching each other, their breathing heavy and mingling between them. In the glow of the lufwood stove, the study felt unreal, cast into secretive lavender shadow. Cowlquape pushed lingering fingers into the roots of Twig’s hair, marveling at how solid, how warm, how beautiful he was.

Twig walked them slowly backwards, until he fell back onto the lounge by the stove and pulled Cowlquape astride him. Cowlquape shifted in his lap and slipped forward until they were pressed together at the waist, his bare, open legs against the cool fabric of Twig’s trousers a visceral experience that should have been humiliating, but _oh,_ it wasn’t, it wasn’t… 

‘Wait, Twig,’ murmured Cowlquape. He sat back and splayed his hands across Twig’s chest, taking a moment to push his hands beneath the fabric of his tunic and feel the rapid beat of his heart. Mesmerized, he flattened his fingers against Twig’s stomach and slid them beneath the waist of his trousers, until he could feel the hot, firm flesh there, and make Twig tense and moan…

The reality of the situation found Cowlquape at last. He leaned back again and withdrew his hands, which tingled as if electrified. Twig’s face, flushed and shining in the gentle glow of the stove, raised to watch him. His friend, whom only yesterday sat beside him in the refectory and clapped him on the back in camaraderie, now sprawled underneath him with heavy-lidded eyes, aching and hard from wanting him…and Cowlquape had touched him, and made him ache, and wanted to do it again. Through Twig’s trousers, he could still feel the thrilling pulse of him against his naked thigh, and had never felt so bold…

Something happened, then, that he didn’t understand—a seismic shift somewhere far below. Distantly, Cowlquape wondered if the storm was rattling the whole of the floating city, or if it was only something in him shaking apart.

He met Twig’s piercing gaze. With trembling fingers, he loosed the knot at the belt of his robe and let it drop in a heap at their feet.

Twig drew up towards him. He cupped Cowlquape’s cheek and hesitated, as if suddenly shy…then kissed him again, with a tenderness that made Cowlquape stir like a stoked flame, until he melted into Twig like warming wax. At the press of Twig’s searching hands against his thighs, tracing the line of his hipbone, raking through the soft curls beneath his navel, Cowlquape felt himself pulse and ache. He whimpered against Twig’s lips.

As if in invitation, Twig finally touched him where he was desperate, and stroked his curled fingers in a delicate rhythm. Cowlquape’s thoughts dissolved in a jumble, the kiss breaking as he gave a short, rasping cry. His head lolled forward, his damp forehead pressing into the comforting crook of Twig’s neck, the sounds that spilled from his lips in an eager stranger’s voice.

Cowlquape had never been touched that way before.

Growing up, there had been expectations placed upon him that were not uncommon among the families of leaguesmen: expectations of respectability, discipline, and moral rigidity; expectations to fall in line and represent his good name. He was to be chaste and keep appropriate company. He was to marry and inherit. And if Ulbus Pentephraxis was more austere than most, and his authority over his only son crueler and less forgiving, than it was still the only thing Cowlquape had known.

Through a lifetime of stealing sideways glances at boyhood friends and knowing that something in him was different—that something was _wrong_ —his control had been perfect. Even as an adult, with six feet of earth between himself and his father’s iron fist, he had clung to the safety of abstinence like a vise, so long as he never had to turn and face it…

But this was Twig, whom he would follow anywhere. Twig, who made him brave. In the warm glow of the study, with his arms threaded around his friend’s steady shoulders, shuddering beneath the grip of his deft, slick hand, Cowlquape’s control fell to pieces. Years of desperate wanting welled up in him, laden with alien grief and exhilaration.

Then he was shifted back as Twig raised a hand to his mouth to wet it with his tongue, his eyes fixed on Cowlquape’s face, and the heady emotion spiraled into plunging desire, so intense it took his breath away.

When he took Cowlquape is his hand again, it was firm and fast. Cowlquape knotted his fingers in Twig’s hair and constricted his arms around his neck, panting against the side of his head. His hips rolled forward, almost involuntarily, for need to be closer, to move with him.

Twig pressed his lips to Cowlquape’s ear. ‘I want to go down on you,’ he murmured, his voice rasping and low.

Cowlquape thrilled at the words, at the hot breath dancing over his skin. He nodded, giddy. ‘Anything,’ he breathed. ‘Everything, just _don’t stop.'_

At that, he felt Twig catch him about the waist with one arm and beneath his thigh with the other, and he was lifted and laid back against the soft velvet of the lounge, and Twig came to rest between his legs. His kiss was brief and eager, and he left a trail of burning kisses in his wake as he worked down. Cowlquape let out a ragged moan as Twig's tongue swirled over one pink nipple, his navel, the crease of his thigh...Cowlquape’s hands flew to his face and he covered his mouth, his legs trembling. Twig’s breath, hot and heady, whispered against him, and then the soft heat of his tongue, and they gave out entirely.

Cowlquape glanced down through hazy eyes to see his friend, with his brow knit in concentration, grip the base of him with one steadying hand and press his open mouth to the side of Cowlquape’s burning flesh.

For a dizzying moment, Twig grazed against him, brushing his lips along his length. Then, bracing his hips to hold him in place, he took Cowlquape into his mouth and swallowed him up, until his lips just touched the silky curls beneath.

Cowlquape made a raw, startled noise from somewhere in his chest, loud enough that he had to bite his palm to stifle it. He gripped Twig’s shoulder and dug in his fingernails, and then Twig lifted, achingly slow, before taking him in deeper. The sound of it was obscene, wetness dripping down his shaking thighs, and Twig followed it with his tongue. He lifted Cowlquape’s knees to drape them over his shoulders and pulled him closer, so they parted further still, and Cowlquape’s hips were raised and curling in on him.

He trembled, his stomach flipping. Something pooled in him, coiling and alive, that ached for the indescribable, that wanted things Cowlquape would have been aghast to consider only hours ago. If he knew the shape, he would plead for it...and in that moment, as Twig’s probing tongue sought beneath the base of him, it crossed his mind to plead for it anyway.

Twig’s mouth moved lower still, and Cowlquape covered his face, mortified, when Twig’s lips met the pink ring of his flesh and _kissed_ him open, the hot, slick pressure of his tongue slipping inside him.

‘Oh!’ he gasped. The embarrassment dissolved into a cascade of desire, his voice breaking off in a sob. Twig pressed into him, curling the tip of his tongue, easing him into the give of it, until Cowlquape was pulsing and breathless. ‘Sky Above,’he whimpered, arching his back to push against Twig’s mouth.

With a desperate moan, Twig broke away. He drew back, lowering Cowlquape’s hips to the lounge, and frantically withdrew an arm to slide two long fingers into his mouth. Before Cowlquape had time to collect himself, Twig had swallowed him again, hungry and swift, and was pushing spit-slick fingers inside him to the knuckle.

‘Oh!’ gasped Cowlquape again, almost a shout this time. ‘Oh...oh... _oh!’_

Twig rocked against him, moving in time with the thrust of his fingers and the dip of his chin. He stroked upwards just so, and Cowlquape sucked in a harsh breath and jerked, the room spinning around him. Twig’s other hand vanished, and Cowlquape glanced down in time to see him open the button on his trousers and make a fist around himself. The rhythm of their bodies aligned, and Cowlquape could feel himself unwinding.

Revelation struck him like a thunderclap. He drew a sharp inhale, and had the sudden sensation of falling. ‘I want you,’ he gasped, the words an epiphany. Then, as if it were a tether that held him to Earth, he repeated: ‘I want you, I want you, I want you…’

Twig’s breathing became audibly ragged. He leaned away, panting, and lay his head on Cowlquape’s thigh. His mouth was shining and pink. ‘Are you sure?’ he rasped between labored breaths.

Cowlquape grabbed Twig’s face in both hands and pulled him upwards. He touched his nose to Twig’s, gazing into the heart-rending openness of his face, and lifted his hips so they rutted together, the slide of hard flesh decadent and undeniable. He watched Twig’s expression contort, his mouth fall open.

A landslide of emotions passed across his face. ‘Wait right here,’ Twig urged, and hurried to his feet. He stumbled across the study to the desk, where he rummaged clumsily in the drawers.

Cowlquape sat up and crawled forward until he could kneel, and Twig returned with a small glass jar. Cowlquape quirked an eyebrow at it, and Twig coloured. ‘Never hurts to have,’ he said sheepishly.

Cowlquape broke into a smile so wide it felt foolish on his face. ‘Come here,’ he said, and Twig obliged.

Before he could settle back onto the lounge, Cowlquape grabbed him by the hips and raised up on his knees, until he was level with Twig’s navel. His trousers were open and slipping down, and Cowlquape thrilled at the closeness of him. He touched his lips to Twig’s stomach, captivated by his quiet intake of breath, and worked his trousers down slowly.

It was electrifying to feel Twig’s velvety skin caress the side of his face, and Cowlquape nuzzled into the enticing heat of him. He turned, as Twig had done, to take him into his mouth.

He was silky and smooth, and felt huge on Cowlquape’s tongue. He boggled at how deftly Twig had swallowed him up, and wondered if he could hope to match it. He took a slow breath in through his nose as sunk down, as far as he could manage. Twig’s knees buckled, and Cowlquape dug his fingers into his sides and bobbed his head, finding a rhythm. His stomach tensed, and he grew desperate again, and hastened to stroke himself, clumsy in his urgency.

Twig suddenly gripped his shoulder with a strangled sound and nudged him back. He slid, glistening, out of Cowlquape’s mouth.

‘I won’t last,’ he breathed, ‘Not for long, like that…’

Cowlquape looked dazedly up at him. ‘You’re still dressed,’ he whispered.

Twig bit his lower lip, a half-smile ghosting there. He slid down his trousers and kicked them away, then pulled the tunic over his head and shucked it aside.

Cowlquape took in the sight, and felt the living intensity in him stir again. Twig lowered onto the lounge beside him, and their eyes locked, as if they were seeing each for the first time.

Cowlquape pushed Twig’s shoulder against the back of the lounge. He hitched one knee over Twig’s lap and slipped towards him, as he had before. This time, when their hips met, Twig took them both in his steady hand. Cowlquape draped his arms over Twig’s shoulders and pressed their foreheads together, so he could taste Twig’s breath.

‘Have you done this before?’ he whispered.

Twig met his eye. ‘Yes,’ he said.

‘With...with another man?’

He didn’t look away. His pupils were huge and dark. ‘Yes,’ he said again.

Cowlquape shuddered. He leaned in closer, and spoke against Twig’s ear. ‘Do it to me,’ he said.

Twig turned to him in answer, and their mouths collided in heated kiss.

Cowlquape shifted back, grasping for the jar on the cushion beside them. When he managed it, he found that he was trembling.

Twig took it gently and unscrewed the lid, generously coating his hand. He reached between them, and Cowlquape let out a quiet cry when Twig’s fingers slipped inside him again, the slickness enough to run down his thighs.

He fumbled for the open jar and slicked his own hand, then set it aside and grabbed at Twig, stroking along his length until he was glistening. He leaned into Twig’s fingers, throbbing where he brushed against Twig’s stomach.

‘Okay,’ he breathed, his voice ragged. He rose on his knees and pressed flush against Twig’s chest, and Twig’s fingers withdrew, his hand going to steady himself. Cowlquape kissed him furiously, all tongue and teeth. He reached behind himself to guide Twig to him, and they pressed together. Cowlquape inhaled through his nose, grounding himself, and sank down.

Twig breached him suddenly, and Cowlquape choked on the sound in his throat and squeezed his eyes shut. He bore down, taking Twig in, inch by inch, until their thighs met again.

Cowlquape was panting, his legs shaking. Twig felt impossibly large inside him, and he was struck by a flicker of doubt and fear.

Twig’s soothing caress brushed the nape of his neck. ‘Take a deep breath,’ he whispered, his voice rasping. ‘Go slow.'

Cowlquape focused on the sound of his voice. He drew in a long breath, and blew it slowly out. He relaxed his face and let his arms go loose around Twig’s shoulders.

The pain eased, and the moment passed. He sighed against the side of Twig’s face. They sat for a moment, adjusting, and a strange new reality settled over them, thick as tilder wool.

Twig fingers grazed against him, and Cowlquape whimpered and rutted forward into his hand, and the feeling of Twig sliding inside him made him lose his breath, as if the wind had been knocked out of him. 

_‘Oh,’_ he moaned, and rutted into Twig’s fist again, the sensation like lightning. His arms locked, ironclad, around Twig’s neck, his fingernails biting into the wiry muscle of his shoulder. The stillness in him erupted into upheaval, the unfamiliar careening into expansive, earth-shaking want.

‘Fuck me,’ he begged. ‘Oh, fuck me, fuck me, Twig, _please…’_

Twig made a helpless, choked sound, as if breaking the surface of water. His free hand dug into the small of Cowlquape’s back and he shifted, just enough to plant his feet and buck up against him. Cowlquape cried out and gripped him like an anchor, bracing against the motion of their bodies, his voice growing raw and unrestrained. They found a cadence, the pressure of Twig’s hand on him unrelenting. Cowlquape felt something gather in his core, thunderous and strange, and he started to quake.

‘Don’t stop,’ he gasped, gripping Twig tighter. The thunder in him built until it felt impossible to contain, pushing outside the boundaries of his body, like it was rattling him apart. ‘Oh, fuck!’

‘It’s okay,’ breathed Twig, coarse and urgent. ‘I’ve got you, I’ve got you, I’ve—’ he bit off the word with a sharp inhale, pressing his mouth against Cowlquape’s collarbone, so his hot breath rolled across the hollow of his throat. ‘I’m close, I’m—’

Cowlquape felt the great swell in him suddenly shatter, and it came crashing over him in one great sweep, from the crown of his head down to the soles of his feet. He could hear himself cursing, could hear Twig’s stifled shout. His muscles locked, his voice caught, and he came onto his stomach with a desperate cry of Twig’s name.

 

* * *

 

Cowlquape rose slowly to consciousness, enveloped in the warm, easy drift between sleeping and waking. He was enveloped in another warmth, too, pressed between something firm and sturdy and the soft velvet of the lounge...although he didn’t remember going to bed the previous night. In fact, he didn’t remember much of anything, really, except reading barkscrolls in his hammock, and then going for a bath, and then that odd storm passing through, and then…

The firm, sturdy something at his back stirred, murmured, _breathed,_ and the night came back to him in vivid detail. 

Cowlquape sat bolt upright, his cheeks burning hot. He remembered Twig’s hands, his mouth— _Earth and Sky,_ thought Cowlquape, the flush rising all the way to his ears—Twig underneath him, _inside_ him…he balked, his own voice echoing in his head, keening and shameless: _‘I want you, do it to me, fuck me, fuck me…’_

He glanced frantically around the room, his heart in his mouth, and leapt at the small groan behind him. He turned in terror to see Twig lying beside him.  

Naked.

Cowlquape put a hand on his bare stomach and felt as though he’d swallowed a rock. A million thoughts tumbled through his head, cycling from the mortifying to the obscene. He’d been so forward, so demanding, so _vulgar_ …but…

But Twig had agreed, hadn’t he? Cowlquape brushed a tentative finger across the hollow of his throat. The skin there was still hot to the touch, as if burned by Twig's lips, his tongue…

More than agreed, thought Cowlquape, his aching body stirring somewhere like an animal stretching to wakefulness. Twig had eased him through, smooth as a sky ship on a gale—made him eager—made him breathless—made him co—

‘Cowlquape?’ mumbled a ragged voice behind him, ‘Cowlquape, you’re awake.’

He froze, overwhelmed with embarrassment as Twig shifted beside him. ‘I’m awake,’ he whispered, but his voice barely traveled as far as his own ears.

‘Do you remember what happened last night?’ Twig asked groggily. ‘I can’t seem to…’ he sat up, his bleary eyes finding Cowlquape’s fiery red face, and he suddenly coloured to match.

‘Oh,’ said Twig, blinking in astonishment. ‘Oh, Sky Above, that’s right.’

Cowlquape scrambled away, humiliated, the spiraling feeling in his stomach turning sour.

‘I-I’m so sorry! I honestly have no idea what came over me, I—’

He was interrupted by a rough banging on the door, and both of them nearly jumped out of their skin. ‘Twig!’ someone outside was shouting, ‘Twig! Open the door!’

Cowlquape staggered to his feet, then lilted wildly to one side, his knees knocking like a newborn tilder.

‘Wait!’ hissed Twig. Cowlquape half-turned to face him, struggling to cover himself at the same time. Twig snatched up his overcoat from where they had thrown it to the floor, tossing it in Cowlquape’s direction. He grabbed it out of the air with flailing arms and bolted for the washroom, ducking into the corner behind the door, and peered cautiously around the threshold.

Twig was stumbling about in an attempt to make himself decent, his clothing from the night before on opposite sides of the study. Cowlquape had to stifle a delirious giggle when he tripped over the leg of the lounge.

At last, Twig made it to the door. He paused to take a slow, wavering breath before pulling it open.

The Professor of Darkness stood on the landing, exasperated, one hand still raised as if he meant to continue knocking. ‘Finally!’ he muttered, brushing past Twig without a second glance as he blustered into the study from the veranda beyond. Cowlquape ducked back against the wall, his knuckles going white as he gripped Twig’s overcoat to his naked form.

Thankfully, the Professor’s footsteps grew no closer as he began to pace. ‘The storm last night, Twig—it was absolutely fascinating! Probably for the best I was away on business, but I was told by the Professor of Psycho-Climactic Studies that it inspired intense desire and caused all sorts of madness barely even mentionable!—at the moment they’re referring to it as a heat storm, which I personally find a little childish, but…’ the Professor of Darkness trailed off, and Cowlquape peered out again. The professor was faced away from him, and seemed to notice for the first time the state of the room. He turned back to Twig, deliberately, to take in his ruffled state of dress and the line of bruises beneath his jaw.

‘You did witness it, then?’ he said. His voice was dry, but warmed with humor. Cowlquape could almost hear the twinkle in his eye. ‘I didn’t know you had found someone, my boy. It’s right about time…’

Twig coloured and averted his eyes sheepishly to the ceiling. The professor clapped him on the arm with a chuckle, and his gaze wandered over Twig’s shoulder, where Cowlquape’s overcoat and satchel hung over his strewn shoes, unmistakable for the barkscrolls protruding from either side. Cowlquape’s stomach sank as he watched the professor put the pieces together, and suddenly smart.

_‘Pentephraxis?’_ he exclaimed in an astonished whisper.

Twig’s lips thinned, his face looking so stricken that the Professor of Darkness barked out a laugh. 

‘No need to look so fearful, Twig! I wouldn’t be any less discreet for him than for you.’ His eyes were kind. ‘Good for the lad. For you both, in fact. I remember being his age, and terrified…I might have been very grateful to have Mother Sky force my hand, as it were…’

Cowlquape’s eyes widened. He drew Twig’s cloak tighter to his hammering chest, his head suddenly spinning. Was there a whole world here, right under his nose, that had been hidden to him?

Then Twig said something softly, almost at a whisper, so Cowlquape had to hold his breath to make it out.

‘But it would be...it would be _your_ hand?’ murmured Twig. ‘That is, you don’t think it could...well, shift a person’s nature, if you take my meaning?’

He sounded so uncharacteristically anxious that Cowlquape turned in earnest to look at him.

The flush in Twig’s cheeks had deepend, and he looked fearful in a way that Cowlquape had never seen him. Although the professor was turned away from him, Cowlquape could see the line of his shoulders ease, the hand he rested on Twig’s arm offering a comforting squeeze.

‘My boy,’ answered the professor, ‘Nature is as Nature does. She wouldn’t touch a thing that wasn’t her own.’

Twig looked up with a flicker of a smile, and as his head rose, his eyes touched Cowlquape’s and hung there. The professor cocked his head in curiosity and began to turn, but Cowlquape was already pressed back into the corner, his pulse hammering.

The Professor of Darkness cleared his throat. ‘Well,’ he said, a little stiffer than before, ‘I best be off. I’ve a world of new research to put down in ink.’ Cowlquape heard the creak of the door and the shuffling of feet. ‘If you’re comfortable, Twig—rather, if either of you are comfortable—science would be grateful for your first-hand account. Anonymously, of course.’

The door swung shut. Cowlquape listened, but the room beyond was silent.

A moment stretched into a minute. It dawned on Cowlquape that, one way or another, he would have to leave the washroom and look Twig in the face. The only clothing he had was stored in his trunk—that, or the thin red bathrobe that they’d kicked somewhere during the evening.

He looked down at Twig’s overcoat. It was long and heavy, and it smelled like woodsmoke, leather, breeze...like Twig. Slipping it on felt incredibly intimate, but he didn’t have other options.

He pushed back his shoulders and set his jaw, then turned and left the sanctuary of the washroom behind him.

Twig was sitting sideways on the lounge, watching the door and waiting for him. Other than the hint of a blush still on his cheeks, he was unreadable.

‘Can we talk?’ he asked softly.

Cowlquape nodded. He approached cautiously and sat on the other end of the lounge, leaving a safe distance between them. He folded his hands in his lap, praying for them to hold steady.

Twig looked down at the space between them. ‘How much did you hear?’

‘All of it,’ Cowlquape admitted.

Twig bit his lower lip. ‘I didn’t know there were such mind storms,’ he said mildly. ‘It does...explain a lot.’

Cowlquape felt a preemptive flush of humiliation. ‘I suppose it does,’ he said, hating the way his voice broke. He started to rise, suddenly willing to walk the streets of Sanctaphrax nude as the day he was born so long as he didn’t have to hear whatever came next.

‘Wait,’ Twig urged, catching him by the hand. ‘I...I know there was more than weather between us last night. Tell me if I’m wrong.’

Cowlquape paused for the space of a breath. The shape of the conversation changed abruptly in his head. A flash of fear, followed by a rush of exhilaration, tickled in his chest. He sat at Twig’s side again, closer this time. He didn’t let go of Twig’s hand.

‘It wasn’t just the storm,’ he said quietly. ‘Between us. Or…’ he swallowed hard. ‘Or for me.’

Twig’s face softened with relief. The mask of indifference dissolved into something warmer, and the gentle light under the surface made Cowlquape’s heart stutter. For the first time in his life, he turned to face the part of himself he’d tried to push down. 

‘There were things I didn’t know about myself, before last night,’ he began. ‘Or, no—I knew, but I wasn’t willing to see it…’ his voice wavered. ‘If we’re... _alike,_ I mean—we _are_ alike, aren’t we? You said’—he blushed at the memory—‘you said that it wasn’t the first time, for you, with another man…’

A small, coy smile touched Twig’s face. ‘We are alike,’ he said, ‘and it wasn’t.’

‘When did you... _how_ did you know?’ Cowlquape whispered.

Twig chewed his lip. He leaned against the back of the lounge. ‘I’ve always known,’ he began, ‘even before I could make sense of it. I had plenty of reason to feel like an outsider in my woodtroll village…everyone, including me, knew that I was different.’ He sighed. ‘I was tall, gangly, awkward…I didn’t quite know how to be part of my own community. I never had any illusions of fitting in. Whatever strangeness I felt fit so sensibly with the rest, it never even occurred to me to look closer.’ Twig’s eyes grew distant and fond, and he tugged absently at a lock of his hair, still worn in traditional woodtroll knots.

‘So much changed when I met my father and took to the skies, left my woodtroll life behind me…for all that Deepwooders know nature can’t be willed to changing, it took life as a sky pirate to realize that there were deeper, less obvious things that were different.’

Cowlquape felt his heart lurch. He leaned towards Twig, ever so slightly. ‘What made you realize that it was… _this?’_ he asked.

Twig grinned at him. ‘A boy,’ he said. ‘What else, but a boy?’ His eyes glazed again, wistful and bright. ‘He was a slaughterer I met once, as a child. His village felt more home to me than mine ever had. I didn’t quite understand it then, why I felt so close to him so quickly…but then we met again.’ Twig’s eyes glittered. ‘When I was a young man, on a trade run with my father. I had grown so much more sure of myself. And he had grown, too…’ He sighed again, and his expression grew tender. ‘Being around him, and then being in bed with him—it was like looking in a mirror and finally seeing my own reflection. For a while, I thought he might come with me, that we might travel the Edge together…but his roots were in the Deepwoods, with his village. And so was his heart.’ A touch of regret tinged his voice. ‘He was my first love, but once I had discovered myself and struck out into the world…’ Twig’s expression changed, and he looked abashed. He cleared his throat, the flush in his cheeks deepening. ‘Well, he wasn’t the only one. I developed a reputation for being...ah, a bit wild.’

Cowlquape thought of how deft and sure Twig had seemed, and his stomach turned a somersault. ‘And it was—it was alright?’ he asked timidly. Then, hearing it come out of his mouth, he backpedaled: ‘I mean, obviously it was alright, but your crew—your _father,_  they…?’

Twig shrugged. ‘Life is different on open sky,’ he said. ‘That’s part of what feels so cloistering about this city. The endless respectability politics, the performative positions, the backbiting and backstabbing…it’s the only reason why I never spoke of it here. I made a promise to the Professor of Darkness. There would be consequences for both of us if my proclivities were widely known.' 

He gave a frustrated snort. ‘But to be cooped up, and bound to the ridiculous, backwards values of such a place...sky pirates are governed by freedom, by joy! Independence and unity are valued in equal measure, and every soul is judged by integrity alone…it’s a simple, honorable existence. That, more than anything, makes me ache to return to the skies.’

Cowlquape’s heart fluttered. It was stunning to hear the burden he had never named put so easily to words. The weight of it had pressed down on him for his entire life—first in the leagues, where he had proved enough of a disgrace without ever discovering himself; and then Sanctaphrax, where a word wrongly whispered was enough to destroy a lifetime of accomplishment and curried favour. He hadn’t thought there could be any other way. He found himself moved, and terrified, at the thought of an open world.

He was surprised by the soft sound of his own voice.

‘I was always different,’ he said. ‘I lost track of all the things I was called, from my father as often as the boys I knew. But the worst was this…this _understanding_ between them, like some great secret was kept from me.’ His voice wavered. ‘My schoolmates would whisper and laugh about the things they heard on the streets of Undertown, dreaming of married lives and wives...and I was content to believe I was just a better boy than that, that my morality was higher, my commitment stronger…’ He squeezed Twig’s hand until the colour left his knuckles. ‘But deep down I knew that I would never marry, and I was terrified of the change adulthood would make in me. And then adulthood came, but I didn’t change…I only felt stranger, as if some part of me had just been cast into deeper shadow.’

Twig leaned toward him. His eyes were so warm, so honest, Cowlquape would have told him anything.

‘What did change?’ Twig asked.

Cowlquape coloured. ‘I met you,’ he said quietly, ‘and my fear grew less powerful the longer I stayed at your side.’

Twig thought for a moment. He shifted closer, so their knees bumped.

‘I’m only here at all because of you,’ he murmured. ‘You pulled me down from a ledge on our very first meeting.’ He brushed his fingertips across Cowlquape’s knuckles, almost shy. ‘I’ve felt so much for you,’ he confessed, ‘but I’ve grown used to allowing my feelings only so much room to breathe, at least while I represent more than myself to Sanctaphrax, and I wanted to believe I only felt for you as I did a friend or a crewmate…and those are powerful in themselves.’

Cowlquape felt his heart in his throat, afraid it would burst. He turned his wrist, offering his upturned palm to Twig’s fingers. ‘But?’ he said, his voice quivering.

Twig’s face lit up with a half-smile. ‘I think we’ve both built formidable walls,' he said, 'and this storm might have been a great blessing to tear them down.’

Again, Cowlquape began to shake. He looked down at their hands, threading his fingers through Twig’s wonderingly. ‘I think it was,’ he whispered, and he was suddenly terrified. As if he could sense it, Twig squeezed in answer. 

‘Whatever happens,’ he said, ‘we’ll face together.’

Cowlquape leaned further still, so the cushion gave between them, and they drew close.

‘Together,’ he agreed, and the ensuing kiss was a promise.

**Author's Note:**

> I really, really hope to continue this story...I see it a sort of alternate canon biography, and it means a lot to me. Thanks for reading!


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